Resumen (otros idiomas)

The current thesis’ title is “Spanish high speed rail network: structuring, development and its effects”. The core of the work is the high speed rail, from which several interrelated aspects are analyzed. The reasons why this topic was chosen are diverse. Personally it is a fulfilling task given the fact that I have been interested in transport geography for a long time and in high speed train in particular design and development of the network, innovation, generated opinions and all type of effects it can create. My personal interest is completed with my technical background gained throughout my B.A. and throughout my own research. From this point several approaches on the high speed train will be analyzed, mainly the Spanish AVE included in the document’s title: structuring, development and its effects. The main aim is to prove the hypothesis, reaching conclusions from the obtained results and finding a thread from the hypothesis, goals and conclusions. Furthermore, the following goals will be stressed on: systematizing transversal knowledge on high speed train acquired through the compilation and studying of the references with great variety of approaches, the thematic cartography made throughout the process. Cartography was a way of expressing graphically and geographically the research process and a support to connect the hypothesis, research and conclusion, the use of topological analysis and the Graph Theory to represent and analysing the structure and growth of the Spanish high speed rail and the use of gravity models to calculate the potential demand of passengers, its comparison with real traffic and the foreseeable future. The first high speed rail line connected the cities of Tokyo and Osaka was opened in 1964. From that moment on the high speed rail has spread throughout the world, especially in the turn of the century, with a growing number of countries with the actual service or under construction or in project. This type of railway has a serie of singularities regarding the conventional train in particular in a technical level. These singularities include higher requirements regarding the path, signal systems, braking, etc. These features are inherent to its conception of a transport mode which runs at higher speed than a conventional rail...